What is the right price for English speaking training?

Price variation in English training

The prices are all over the place. You will get English speaking training for Rs 500 per month to Rs 10, 000 per two sessions 6 hours long in the nearby 5 star hotel.

How much should I pay for an English speaking training program?

What is the real price?

How much should you be willing to pay for a month of good English speaking training program?Or the larger question-how much is a good English speaking training program really worth?

Before we get into the dirty details, let me lay out that I am using the term English speaking training in a fairly wider sense to include basic English fluency training to spoken and written communication training delivered at corporate level.

Now back to the question-is Rs 500 a month at Sharma English Speaking Bhandar a good price to pay, is Rs 10, 000 a month at some Hyperlingua English Institute too much or is Rs 100 or whatever for the English program on Tata Sky enough?

Now, basic logic says that something is worth doing as long as its benefits exceed the cost you pay for it. Thus, maximum cost that you can pay for something is equal to its benefits (because the moment cost becomes more than benefits, it becomes a ghate ka sauda which is not worth doing.

What is the benefit you get out of an English speaking training?

That you will speak great English?

That’s the promise, that’s the moon companies show you to make you join their training program. The benefit is the actual permanent improvement in your English speaking skills.

Why permanent?

Because permanent is what stays with you. Permanent is what you take home.

So, if two months after finishing the training, you find little improvement in your English speaking skills, your English speaking program was worthless. Yes, you could have crumpled that money into a ball and thrown it into a ditch – the fee you paid for that worthless English speaking plus the petrol cost or the rickshaw fare.

Now suppose your English speaking training really worked and you begin speaking great English, feel empowered and confident and communicate with great flair. So, you’ve got a benefit out of your English speaking training. How do you measure it?

Simple.

Convert it to money.

How?

What happens when your communication skills become better?

You do well in your career. You get higher raises, more promotions and better jobs.

Lets suppose that your improved English speaking skills increase your monthly earnings by Rs 10, 000. This means due to your English speaking training program, you make Rs 1, 20, 000 more in the first year. Lets suppose that each year, you get an average salary raise of 15%. A simple geometric progression calculation will show that a good English speaking training course makes you richer by Rs 1.22 Crores over a period of 20 years. Adjust it for inflation, say 7% and the number comes out to Rs 52 Lakhs.

Thus an English speaking training course which can help you increase your monthly income by Rs 10, 000 today will pay you Rs 52 Lakhs net adjusted for all inflation over the next 20 years.

It is as good as having Rs 52 Lakhs to spend, right here, right now. That’s how much a program that really works would be worth.

Now, you may say why 7% inflation, why not 8 or 10? You may also say why 20 years, why not 10?

My point is not the exact numbers, my point is that if an English-speaking training course works, it will pay you in multiples of Lakhs, even crores. The max that you would pay for it would be a few thousands or may be ten thousands. Totally worth rushing for it, a khara sauda if ever there was one.

The key here is-whether it brings a permanent improvement in your English speaking skills?

If yes, pay as much as they ask for.

If no, don’t pay a chavanni.

If you are fond of throwing the money away, do it outside a temple where at least some homeless people will benefit.